Domestic Diversions

False memories

The New York Times updates the study of recovered memories. Two studies found that food was a subject easily manipulated in the minds of adults.

Benedict Carey writes (excerpt):
“This is called the false feedback technique, where you gather data from the subjects and use it to lend credibility to this false profile,” said Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist at the University of California at Irvine who led the research.

But about 40 percent of the 336 participants confirmed in later interviews that they remembered getting sick or believed it to be true. Compared with a control group, the believers said on questionnaires that they would be much more likely to avoid eating pickles or hard-boiled eggs if offered them at a party. In another study, just completed, the researchers found that people who were told that they loved asparagus as children were much more drawn to that slender delicacy than those whose memories were left alone.

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